Penance
by Batty Badger
Summary: Blake feels she should have let her team in on her secret sooner.


The kitchen was shared by everyone on the floor, but Ren was one of the few who ever used it. He stood at the stove making pancakes for his team. Aside from Nora, nobody had ever come into the kitchen while he was using it before. This was not the case today.

"Hello, Blake," he said, without turning to look at her.

"How did you - actually, no, I'm not even surprised."

"Was there something you wanted?"

"I just came to watch you."

Ren wasn't so easily fooled. "Is that so?"

Blake wasn't one to give away personal information easily, but she knew Ren was trustworthy. Not only was he soft-spoken, but he hardly said a word to begin with, and certainly never to gossip. Ren was a lot like herself. Blake knew he wouldn't give away her secrets.

"I made a mistake. I need a way to make it up to my team."

"Right. Then it didn't go well when they found out you were a faunus?"

Blake was caught off guard by this statement. She knew Ren to be perceptive, but even she couldn't figure out how he could have known that information. "Who told you I was a faunus?"

"I didn't need telling. I knew from the first night here."

"What? How? You were one of the first asleep that night."

"Yang and Ruby woke me up fighting. When they were talking to you, remember?"

"Yeah. And?"

"And then Weiss came over, and you went to sleep. Still wearing that bow," he said looking at the object in question.

Blake raised an eyebrow and as seriously as she could, although not actually meaning anything by it, asked, "Were you watching me sleep, Ren?"

"I was simply watching the situation unfold. Anyway, what do you mean you made a mistake?"

"They're my team, Ren. I should have told them a lot sooner. And it certainly shouldn't have come out the way it did."

"Things are fine now, though?"

"I guess. I was never really worried about Ruby or Yang finding out, and Weiss says she's okay with it, but I still feel bad. Like I let them down. I don't want them thinking I don't trust them, or that they can't trust me."

"So you think pancakes will help?"

Blake raised her eyebrows at him. "Really, Ren? You knew I was a faunus but you can't figure this out? It's about the gesture. I just need them to know how sorry I am."

"That makes sense. Although, I have to believe your team is telling you the truth. I'm sure they've all put it behind them. They're good people, Blake. Even Weiss gets over her grudges pretty quickly."

"Are you gonna teach me how to make these, or are you gonna risk me setting the school on fire?"

Ren saw that she refused to be reasoned with. This was something she felt she needed to do. "They're really not that hard to make."

The next morning was Saturday, and Blake made sure she was the first member of team RWBY to wake up. It wasn't difficult, the other members of team RWBY were all late sleepers, especially now that the excitement of being accepted to Beacon had worn off, and classes had begun taking their toll.

A little after 11:00, Blake decided she had made enough pancakes and headed back to the room. As she approached the room, she heard Ruby ask, "Where's Blake?"

"I'm right here," she said entering the room, as Yang hung herself over the side of the top "bunk" to look at Blake's empty bed.

"What's with all the pancakes?" Yang asked.

"They're for all of you. I made plenty. They probably aren't as good as Ren's. Sorry." She explained all this as she handed out the plates of pancakes to her teammates.

"Okay. Why?"

"I still feel bad about what happened. I should have told you, and I shouldn't have run away."

"Blake," Weiss said, "You've already explained yourself. We've told you, you're fine, we get it. Really." Although Weiss had said at the shipping yard she didn't care about Blake's past, a few days later Blake had insisted on telling her and Yang everything she'd told Sun at the café, and that she'd told Ruby after the fight with Roman.

"Yeah. You don't have to keep apologizing, or try to win us over with pancakes," Yang told her.

"Fine. Then it's not an apology. It's penance."

"Well, then," Ruby said through a mouthful of pancake, "consider it fulfilled, because these are really good."


End file.
